Barefoot In The Sand
by Teobi
Summary: MAG ficlet. Gilligan and Mary Ann take a stroll on the beach. Happy Birthday JWood201! *UPDATE* Chapter 2 now added. Musings from the big rock.
1. Chapter 1

Happy Birthday JWood201!

**Barefoot in the Sand**

"Ow! Gilligan, wait!" Mary Ann clutched her ankle and sank down onto the sand. Gilligan, about ten feet ahead, stopped and turned around.

"You okay Mary Ann?"

Mary Ann screwed up her face. "It's this blister," she complained. She took off her shoe and examined her reddened ankle bone, poking at the little sac of fluid filled skin.

Gilligan retraced his steps and hunkered down next to Mary Ann. "Sure is a doozy," he said, putting out his hand to stop her from picking at it.

"It's these shoes," said Mary Ann. "They don't normally give me blisters but I guess it's the heat."

Gilligan looked at her pinched features with concern. "Do you want to cut short our walk?"

Mary Ann shook her head. "No, I'm all right, Gilligan. It's only a blister." She moved to put her shoe back on but Gilligan stopped her.

"Don't be silly," he said. "If the shoes are giving you blisters then don't wear them."

Mary Ann peered into his blue-green eyes. "You mean go barefoot?"

"Sure, why not?"

Mary Ann looked at the blister on her ankle and chewed the inside of her lip.

"Didn't you ever go barefoot as a child?" Gilligan persisted.

Mary Ann brightened. "Oh, all the time!"

"Then why not do it now?"

Mary Ann shrugged. "I guess because I'm not a child any more."

Gilligan flipped his hand as though giving her the brush off. "So what. I'm not a kid either but I go barefoot all the time." He planted his butt on the sand and proceeded to pull off his sneakers and socks. "See?"

Mary Ann watched his toes waggling like little tiny zoo animals released back into the wild. They looked funny and she laughed.

"Boy, it sure feels good to air the puppies," Gilligan grinned.

Mary Ann laughed even harder.

"Go on, take your shoes off," he smiled. "I won't tell anyone."

Mary Ann smiled back and pulled her shoes off. She placed them side by side on the beach and stretched out her legs. Her toes wiggled against the blue of the sea and she delighted in the cooling air that drifted between them.

"Just because Ginger wears shoes all the time doesn't mean you have to," Gilligan said, unexpectedly.

Mary Ann darted a look at him. "What do you mean? I don't wear shoes just because Ginger does!"

Gilligan's expression was at once innocent and worldly wise. "You don't need to try and be like her. She's an actress- you're not."

Mary Ann looked at her shoes sitting neatly side by side on the sand.

"I bet you used to climb trees," Gilligan continued.

"I did," she nodded.

"I bet you had dirty knees and I bet you used to pick up worms."

Mary Ann stared at his grinning face.

"I bet you even had a tree house," Gilligan said. "Am I right?"

She laughed and nodded. "You're right," she giggled. "I had a wonderful tree house, with a rope ladder that you could pull up and a password that only my friends knew!"

"Were you worried about your shoes?"

Mary Ann threw up her hands in resignation. "I didn't care a whit about my shoes!" she declared.

Gilligan threw his shoes into the bushes.

Mary Ann threw her shoes into the bushes.

He stood up and held out his hand and she took it, and they walked barefoot down to the shoreline.

"Your feet are so big," said Mary Ann. She hung back so that she could put her feet into Gilligan's footprints. Her toes reached to where his toes started. "Are you sure you're not the missing Bigfoot?"

"My feet aren't big, it's your feet that are small," laughed Gilligan. "Are you sure you're not Tinkerbell?"

Mary Ann ran to Gilligan's side. She pretended to sprinkle fairy dust on his head. "I grant you three wishes. What will they be?"

Gilligan thought about it. "I wish we could be rescued. I wish everyone could be happy. And I wish you knew how beautiful you are."

Mary Ann's mouth fell open. The pain of her ankle was forgotten.

"Gilligan..." she began.

But he was off and running.

"Race you to the big rock!" he yelled, and she left her cares behind and followed him.


	2. Chapter 2

**I very much enjoyed writing Barefoot In The Sand, the fact it was a last minute birthday present for my partner in crime, and the lovely response that it got. So I decided to add a little more to it. Hopefully this will work. **

**JWood201 it ain't your birthday any more, but you earned your degree so here's some more MAGness for you, and for all other fans of MAG and ... yeah, I'll shut up now. Proceed.**

Gilligan made no concession for the fact that Mary Ann had a blister. He ran like the wind along the shore and around the lagoon until he reached the big rock. When Mary Ann arrived, limping slightly, he was sitting on it like a leprechaun with a big grin on his face, tiny shadows hiding in his dimples.

"I win," he said, triumphantly.

Mary Ann budged him over and sat next to him, lifting her foot up onto the rock. "Congratulations," she said. "You beat a girl with an injured ankle."

Gilligan grinned wider and tipped his head to one side.

"You're a sore loser, Mary Ann."

"And you're a smug winner, Gilligan."

"Thanks," he said, creasing his eyes at her.

Mary Ann contorted herself and peered at her blister. "Look, it's covered in sand! I'll probably get an infection."

Gilligan snorted. "No you won't. Wash it in sea water, it's the best thing for cleaning wounds."

Mary Ann picked grains of sand out of the blister and winced. "It also stings like merry heck."

"Don't be a baby," Gilligan tutted. "You want me to start calling you Ginger?"

Mary Ann looked at him through lowered eyelids. "Don't get cocky just because I let you win the race," she told him.

"Pfft," he snorted again. "I won because I'm faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound..."

"Able to knock over three experiments in one morning," Mary Ann finished, immediately apologising when Gilligan's face fell spectacularly. "I'm sorry," she said, putting her hand on his arm. "That was a low blow."

"Maybe if the Professor didn't leave them out in the open," Gilligan humphed.

"Or behind a closed door." Mary Ann giggled and apologised again. "Sorry."

Gilligan clasped his hands over his heart and pretended to be mortally wounded. "See why I don't trust girls," he said to no one in particular.

"Ooh, now I'm offended!" Mary Ann squealed.

"Good."

They pretended to ignore each other, folding their arms and turning away to look in opposite directions.

"I hope you're proud that you beat a poor, injured little girl," Mary Ann said, crisply.

"I hope your whole foot swells up and bursts," Gilligan retorted.

"Well! That's nice!"

"Phooey on 'nice'!"

"Phooey on you, Gilligan!"

"And phooey on _you_, little girly!"

"My name is Mary Ann!"

They couldn't keep up the pretence any longer. They fell against each other and began giggling like two small children with their hands over their mouths, laughing about the Russian painter Dubov who had renounced civilization and exiled himself on their island. At least, until he met the castaways.

"His canvases were only good for one thing, and that was getting himself off the island," said Mary Ann.

"Yeah," said Gilligan, "getting himself off the island without _us_."

They stopped laughing, sobered up and slumped against each other, staring out across the rippling lagoon. Mary Ann rested her head on Gilligan's shoulder and sighed.

"Do you think we'll _ever _be rescued, Gilligan?"

"One day," her friend replied.

Mary Ann watched the clouds scudding towards the horizon, journeying to places far and wide, places that she would never see.

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, wistfully.

"Yes," he replied, firmly. "I do."

"Even if a hundred people came to this island and left us behind every time?"

"Yep. Even if _two_ hundred people came and left us every time."

Mary Ann lifted her head and studied his profile. She studied his long eyelashes and his nose and his lips and his rounded chin and a tiny red mark below his ear where he'd nicked himself shaving.

"How about three hundred? Four hundred, even."

"Yep," he said. "Even four hundred, or five hundred or a thousand." He turned his head to look at her and she found herself blushing as his blue green eyes met hers. "We won't be here forever, Mary Ann. But even if we were, it's not such a bad place to be. Is it?"

Mary Ann found she couldn't tear her gaze away from his. She saw a tiny version of herself in his eyes, swimming in the blue of his irises as though she were underwater.

Swimming, or drowning?

She felt suddenly light headed. "It's hot," she said, quietly.

"It's a tropical island."

"I mean, it's _hot. I'm_ hot. I don't think I could stand this heat forever."

Gilligan smiled and something in her chest tumbled over. Not her heart, surely?

"You'd get used to it," he said. "There's a word, I can't remember it. Acclamatise?"

Mary Ann giggled softly. "I think it's 'acclimatise'."

He snapped his fingers loudly, like a pistol crack. "Yeah!" he laughed. "You'd acclimatise. To the weather."

"I'm sure I would," she agreed, filling his eyes with her smile._  
_

Gilligan tipped his head back and a teasing lilt crept into his voice. "Really though, you should have acclimatised already, but I'll give you a break since you're only a girl."

Mary Ann's eyes widened abruptly. "What do you mean, 'only a girl'?"

Gilligan shrugged nonchalantly. "Only a girl. Only a poor little girl with an injured ankle. Aww, poor little Mary Ann."

"Those are fighting words, Gilligan," said Mary Ann with a warning tone.

"You wanna fight me?" Gilligan replied, grinning. "Ooh, I'm scared!"

Mary Ann scrambled off the rock and her face rumpled up into an exaggerated scowl. "I'll give you poor little Mary Ann," she said, adopting the pose of someone about to wrestle a calf to the ground.

Gilligan did the same and stood opposite her, squinting his eyes and flexing his fists. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

He thrust out his chin and stared her down like Marshall Dillon. "Oh _yeah_?"

"_Yeah_!"

Gilligan tensed, catlike. His eyes darted and Mary Ann got ready.

"Well you're gonna have to catch me first," Gilligan cried, and he bounced back at least three feet as though he had springs in his legs, as though he were the human equivalent of a mad March hare, or Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. "What are ya waiting for, Hopalong?" he laughed, and then turned tail and fled, eating up the sand in long, hungry strides, sprinting towards the jungle and the path that led home to the huts.

Mary Ann broke into a run, but even at her fastest she was no match for her funny friend with the gangly limbs and the enthusiasm of a class full of kindergarten children. Once again she forgot the irritating sting of her blister and chased after Gilligan, knowing she would never catch him- and even if she did, even if one day he allowed her that small triumph, there would always be a part of him that would remain resolutely out of reach.

Gilligan was too far ahead. She could hear him whooping like a howler monkey, rustling leaves as he ran through the trees, grabbing onto the ends of overhanging branches. She gave up chasing him and slowed to a walk, wondering if the soles of his feet were made of leather.

The hot tropical sun was one thing, but the spells of heat that _he_ generated within her were something else entirely. They came on without warning, for the simplest of reasons. The way he flailed his arms, the bit of his neck that disappeared into his collar, the occasional glimpse of his lucky charm glinting in the sun. The way he wore his wristwatch with the face turned inwards. His dimples. His eyes. His silly battered hat. the nape of his neck and his bony wrists. She had no idea when all of this had started- she just felt as though she'd known him all her life.

Heat crept over her again and she was glad he was too far away to see it.

Mary Ann picked her barefoot way along the path and smiled secret thoughts to herself. She could acclimatise to the weather no problem, but she didn't think she'd ever acclimatise to Gilligan.

And that, she decided, was a wonderful thing.


End file.
